give: hand something over, grant it, or credit it to someone, always as a command or urgent request
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This is the verb "give," but with an unusual limitation: in Hebrew it survives only as a command or a plea. You never read that someone "gave" with this word; you only ever hear someone say "Give!" For every other form, the language uses the ordinary verb for giving instead. So the word almost always carries a note of demand or appeal, from a wife asking for children to a leech crying "Give, give."
The senses fan out from the plain act of handing something over. Sometimes what is given is a physical thing or a person. Sometimes it is something furnished on request, like counsel, capable men, or help in battle, where "give" shades toward "provide" or "appoint." And in worship it becomes "ascribe": the command to give the LORD glory and strength does not add anything to God but renders to him the honor already his.
What holds these together is the single motion of directing something toward another party at that party's word. The differences are matters of what is handed over and to whom, not of a different underlying action.
Nuances
1ahand over a thing or a person to someone who asks for it
1bfurnish, provide, or assign what is asked for: capable men, counsel, help, or a person put in place
Deu 1:13Jos 18:4Jdg 20:71Sa 14:41 (2×)2Sa 11:15*2Sa 16:20Psa 60:11(13)Psa 108:12
1cascribe: render to the LORD in worship the glory, strength, and greatness already his
Deu 32:31Ch 16:28 (2×)1Ch 16:29Psa 29:1Psa 29:2Psa 96:7Psa 96:8
2
come now!: a call urging others (or oneself) to get on with an action, often "come, let us..."
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
When the command to give is aimed not at a thing but at an action, it turns into a summons: "come now, let us build," "come, let us deal shrewdly." It is the same verb as "give," but here it means give yourself to what follows, so English renders it "come" or "come now."
This use always sits in front of a proposal the speaker wants carried out. The builders at Babel rally each other with it, Pharaoh uses it to plot against Israel, and Judah uses it to press Tamar. The force is not motion from one place to another but the nudge to begin: less "walk over here" than "let's do this."
underneath the English "come" is still the verb "give": a call to give oneself to the action being proposedGen 11:4Exo 1:10
Both
both summon someone to act nowGen 11:3
Only come
the English word suggests moving toward the speaker, but here nothing moves; it simply urges a group to begin acting
“provide”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“grant”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How yahav differs from similar Hebrew words
נָתַןthe ordinary all-purpose verb for giving, used in every form and tense; it supplies the past and future of giving that this word, stuck in the command form, cannot express
appears mostly as a command, the urgent "give!" or "hand it over!" of someone asking or demandingGen 29:21Gen 30:1
stretches into the sense of "come now, let us" when people rally one another to act togetherGen 11:3Gen 11:4
is used to call for ascribing or rendering glory and worship to God, not handing over an objectPsa 29:1Psa 96:7
Both
both mean to give or hand over something to someone, and in the same scenes one speaker demands with the older word while the act is carried out with the everyday wordGen 38:16Gen 47:16
is the ordinary, everyday verb for giving, covering gifts, payments, grants of land, and handing anything over to anyoneGen 1:29Gen 24:53
is used again and again for God giving, whether a covenant, a land, or descendantsGen 9:3Gen 14:21
can also mean to set, put, or place something rather than hand it to a personGen 1:17Gen 9:13
yahav in the other biblical languages
יְהַבAramaic“to give”the Aramaic word from the same root, which unlike the Hebrew is fully conjugated and reports giving in every tense, not only as a command
δίδωμιGreek“to give”the everyday Greek verb for giving, fully conjugated, which the Greek Old Testament uses to render both this command form and the ordinary Hebrew verb for give
What scholars say about yahav
yahab is a defective verb attested only in the imperative; the rest of its paradigm is supplied suppletively by natan (H5414). The cognate in Biblical Aramaic (H3052) is fully conjugated. Standard lexica (BDB, HALOT) treat the hortatory particle habah as this imperative used interjectionally, glossed "come!" and typically prefacing a first-person cohortative (Gen 11:3-7; Exod 1:10). The formulaic call habu la-YHWH "ascribe to the LORD" (Ps 29:1-2; 96:7-8; 1 Chr 16:28-29; Deut 32:3) is a recognized summons to worship in which the verb means to render due honor. The lexica agree on the semantics; the range from "give" through "provide/appoint" to "ascribe" is treated as contextual extension of one verb rather than distinct roots.